


Homecoming

by thatdamneddame



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Phil Coulson was twenty-three, he fell in love. It’s what people are supposed to do, fall in love and settle down, but for all Phil Coulson is a practical man, he’s never been one for convention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

The letter comes on a Tuesday, the bright blue of cheap ink standing out from the official SHEILD papers scattering Phil’s desk.

Phil’s not that surprised that Richard had to resort to this, sending him letters at work. In the past seventeen years, all that’s remained the same is Phil’s PO Box number. Phil’s just surprised that Richard saw fit to write to him at all.

 

***

 

Phil Coulson, like most people who trade in information and secrets for a living, chose work over love early on, and let his personal relationships suffer for it. Let them wither and die, as the silence filled up the spaces of everything he couldn’t say and every fear he couldn’t confide. It’s hard to relate to your partner’s difficulty getting the right toner at the office when Phil had been up to his elbows in Neo-Nazis all afternoon. He has interns and junior agents to deal with ink and toner, not that Richard can know that.

Commiseration proves difficult, in the end.

 

***

 

Because the world is what it is, Tony Stark finds the letter. It’s sitting on Phil’s desk, waiting for him to fill out the appropriate time sheets and leave request forms. He hadn’t thought about it. The Junior Agents know better than to ask. The Senior Agents have read his file, have sat with Phil over late night comms and had a beer with him after a mission completed, and they have all talked, all shared those pasts that only people with the rights clearance can know, because after a while you have to tell someone. Besides, everyone at SHEILD has a broken heart. They all thought something was more important than love and family, at least, in the beginning.

“Who’s Richard Callahan?” Tony asks, never one for propriety or boundaries.

“My ex-partner.” Phil explains because Richard has never been anything to be ashamed about.

He can see Tony puzzle this over, “I thought SHEILD didn’t assign partners.” Tony says, holding the envelope up to the light. It’s open, he could read it if he wanted, but Phil supposes Steve has managed to teach the man some manners.

Phil takes the letter from Tony’s hands anyways, “I’m gay, Mr. Stark. Richard was my ex- _partner_.”

Something passes across Tony’s face, too quick for Phil to decipher, “Did he leave you because you watch _Super Nanny_?” Tony asks, thinking he’s funny. Phil used to hope that Steve Rogers would dissuade Tony Stark from this notion, but their relationship seems to have had the opposite effect.

“I don’t discuss my personal life at work,” Phil says instead of asking how he’s managed to maintain a healthy relationship with Captain America of all people, “Now get out of my office, or I’ll assign Sitwell to live on site.”

The threat works as intended, although Phil knows that for Tony Stark, out of sight does not mean out of mind.

 

***

 

When Phil Coulson was twenty-three, he fell in love. It’s what people are supposed to do, fall in love and settle down, but for all Phil Coulson is a practical man, he’s never been one for convention.

He enlisted at eighteen, joined the Army Rangers at twenty-four, and was recruited into SHIELD at thirty. He’s always been low-key, with an analytical mind and a love for his country, and unfortunately for Richard, Phil has always preferred the thrill of a gun in his hand than a home-cooked meal.

 

***

 

Clint calls him that afternoon. He’s on assignment with Steve in Utah. Tony must have called to gossip with Steve and found Clint instead.

“You want to talk about it?” Clint asks without any preamble, and Phil loves him for it.

“Merilyn died,” Phil says, “Breast cancer. He didn’t know how else to reach me.”

“You going to the funeral?”

Phil sighs into the phone, “She was a good woman. I should pay my respects.”

“I hear Michigan’s beautiful this time of the year,” Clint jokes as Phil looks out his window into the bitter grey of New York in February, “I’ll be home in two days,” he adds, voice softer.

Phil knows that Clint’s supposed to be on assignment for another two weeks, but he doesn’t fight it, just lets himself be Clint’s partner instead of Clint’s boss, just takes this for the gift it is.

“Don't do anything rash.” Phil says, when what he means is _thank you_ and _I love you_.

“Oh, you know me.” Clint laughs, and Phil hears, _I love you, too_.

 

***

 

Even after Richard had left him, had said _I can’t do this anymore_ and _I thought you loved me_ , Phil still stayed in touch with Richard's mother.

Merilyn had fretted over him when he went on tours of duty and sent him all the letters Richard couldn't. She had been another mother to him, and when Phil’s own parents died when he was twenty-eight, she had been his family.

After Richard, Phil sent her a Christmas card every year and flowers on her birthday. And when she'd gotten sick he sent her flowers once a week and all the names and numbers of the best doctors he knew.

Phil broke the heart of her only son. He could go to her funeral. He owed her that.

 

***

 

Fury says, “Bring Barton with you,” when Coulson hands in his leave request forms.

“Sir?” Coulson asks, because Fury doesn’t really comment on Coulson’s relationship with Clint. Fury doesn’t talk about a lot of things unless they’re an issue.

“Sitwell is sure as shit not up to handling both the Avenger Initiative and your sniper unsupervised,” Fury says, sounding bored by Phil’s mundane problems, “Anything else, Agent Coulson?”

Phil wants to take exception, say Clint is many things, but he’s certainly not Phil’s sniper, but Fury’s never been one to care about other people’s feelings, so instead Phil leaves to calls Clint and tell him that he better hope Michigan is beautiful this time of year because he’s going.

 

***

 

Six months after the Avengers Initiative team roster is finalized, Fury sends out the order. It doesn't really come to a surprise to either of them—elite teams are required to cohabitate in order to foster unity and improve response time. It’s standard procedure. Phil and Clint are used to this song and dance, have done it before. They'll get over it.

 

***

 

Phil meets Clint at the airport baggage claim.

“Flying coach to Grand Rapids,” Clint grouses, “it makes the circus seem high class.”

“It keeps us in touch with the people,” Phil tells him, fishing the rental keys out of his pocket. He arrived before Clint with enough time to take care of renting a car, bypassing Clint’s favorite pastime of harassing the already harassed agents at Hertz, “Knowing Tony Stark’s making you soft.”

If anyone else would have said it, Phil knows nothing good would come of it. Clint would pick a fight, would fight back, would prove himself because he is a good soldier and the best damn marksman in the world and he knows it. He knows, the way Colonel Rhodes does, that the human mind can be one of the most effective weapons in the world. That is can never be replaced by money or technology. Clint knows what it’s like to have everyone you love turn on you and what it’s like to be called _carnie_ and _freak_ ,and he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he has worth. That he is valuable.

Clint is sure of himself, and he is sure of Phil, and so he just laughs, “If wanting pole dancing flight attendants is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.”

 

***

 

Phil’s never really thought about getting married. When he was younger, he barely even thought about coming out. He was in the army and the rangers and there was DADT and it was illegal for him to get married in all 50 states and besides, he had Richard then. And together they had this apartment in the city, and no one really gave them any shit because Phil was a veteran and Richard was a pediatrician and they always paid their taxes on time and took out their own trash.

After Richard, Phil was alone for eight years and working for SHEILD, which wasn’t really an organization that fostered healthy relationships, especially since it had already helped dissolve Phil’s first one. Besides, there were Neo-Nazis and secret government plots and everything was about national security, so Phil didn’t really have time to pick up anything at Coffee Bean other than his order before getting the hell back to his office.

But then one day he gets himself shot in the gut on an op gone totally wrong, and when he wakes up Clint is in the hospital with him saying, “SHEILD can’t have you. You’re mine.” And normally Phil would take exception to this because he’s never been anybody’s man but his own, but then he thinks back to all the times that their positions have been reversed and he was the one sitting by Clint’s bedside, and Phil thinks that he’s given everything he has to SHEILD, but no, they can’t have this.

When he gets out of the hospital, they don’t go ring shopping because marriage equality won’t be realized in New York for another six years and Clint takes exception to playing by the rules, and, besides, the ring interferes with his grip. But Clint does steal Phil’s old dog tags and he never takes them off. And Phil unearths his father’s wedding ring, simple and gold, and gets the name _Clinton Francis Barton_ engraved inside because, Phil thinks, of this one thing he is sure.

 

***

 

The weather in Michigan is terrible, the roads slush filled and the wind bitter.

“Next time, we go to the beach,” Clint tells him shucking off salt encrusted boots and travel worn clothes in their hotel room.

“It’s not a vacation,” Phil reminds him, unlacing his own shoes and loosening his tie.

Clint ambles over to him, wearing nothing but his boxers and undershirt, looks Phil in the eye and says, very seriously, “I walked in on Tony trying to teach Steve how to use a webcam for sex. This is a vacation from insanity.”

Phil just laughs and kisses him, because he doesn't really need both hands to count the number of times he and Clint have been away together not for work, and yeah, it's a little bit of a vacation.

 

***

 

Richard is not happy when Phil tells him that he’s been offered a job at an elite, little known, poorly named government agency. To be fair to Richard, he isn’t unhappy either, just resigned to it, and looking back now, Phil can see that the cracks were forming long before SHEILD asked him to sign his life away.

"What does this mean for us?" asks Richard, used to discretion and Phil’s work consisting of things that can’t be said, and well sick of it.

Phil shrugs, "It means no more tours of duty."

"Are you still going to get yourself shot at?" Richard was always good at figuring out the uncomfortable truths Phil wasn’t saying and confronting him with them.

"I'm going to be an analyst." Phil says. Cover stories across all secret government agencies lack creativity, but Phil finds himself at home with the lie. He’s going to be a field agent. He’s going to shoot people and get shot at and hopefully stop problems before men, people, good men like his old unit, need to get involved. "But the pay will be better."

"Well, as long as I'll be a rich widower." Richard says dryly, and if people call Phil sarcastic now, it’s only because he had a good teacher.

 

 

Phil takes the job. Richard isn't surprised.

 

***

 

Long before Facebook, Phil had government resources and semi-regular contact with his ex’s mother to keep tabs on Richard, and so he’s not surprised in the least when he sees him at calling hours, holding another man’s hand. And even if Merilyn hadn’t gently included in her emails to his dummy account that Richard had started seeing an accountant from Hoboken, Phil would have been surprised if Richard had spend the past twenty years alone, when he had so much more love to give than Phil.

 It’s the first time Phil’s seen Richard since he left. While Phil has started to lose his hair, Richard’s is nearly half grey where it was once entirely black. He has laugh lines and frown lines and glasses sitting crookedly on his nose and he seems so normal, so plain that Phil misses Clint and his scars and his small vanities.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d come.” Richard looks at Phil the way he did in the end, uncertain and sad.

“Your mom was a good woman,” Phil says simply, “She taught me how to cheat at poker.”

Richard smiles at that, something Phil hasn’t seen for a little over twenty years. It’s nice.

“I’m glad you came.” Richard tells him. He sounds like he means it.

 

***

 

When Phil was twenty-eight, both his parents died in a car crash, and it was like whatever had been holding him to the conventional life had been severed with it. Richard doesn’t know, can never know, that SHEILD had contacted him before. That Phil was twenty-six and in an undisclosed location on a mission that never happened and everything that could go wrong did, and Phil, covered in the blood of the commanding officer he couldn’t save, single-handedly got his unit the hell out of dodge. And Phil had said no then because he couldn’t lie to his parents.

But he could lie to Richard.

Phil’s not really proud about that, but he’s honestly not that ashamed either.

 

***

 

Clint didn’t go with him to calling hours, but he goes with him to the service. Checkered pasts, and it means that they’re both at home with funerals, that they’ve been to enough of them to last a lifetime. Phil hasn’t been to a civilian service since his parents.

Clint jokes all the way there, asks Phil that if Richard’s new man is Tom, then does that make Phil Nancy? He demonstrates an unforeseen tact, however, upon entering the church, face solemn, hand steady on the small of Phil’s back, a solid presence just in case. Always there if Phil needs him, just out of sight, on the field and in Phil’s heart.

Clint always claims that he’s observant, that his eyes are the best in the world, and Phil usually agrees before telling him that maybe he could use his eyes to realize that the dishwasher’s full and maybe he could use that body he’s always bragging about to maybe put the dishes away. Sometimes Phil forgets that Clint can be thoughtful too.

He’s glad Clint’s here.

 

 

(Phil still tells him in the car that if Clint insists on calling him Nancy then Phil will just insist on withholding sex. It’s an ultimately empty threat, but it’s the one bluff Clint will never call.)

 

***

 

Clint moves into Phil’s house the same way he moved into Phil’s life: slow, steady and unrelenting. One day Phil is living alone, DVR filled with reality TV and a lone coffee mug drying by the sink, the next and Clint is everywhere. His bow hanging by the bed, his boots by the door, his secret stash of Lucky Charms tucked into the back of the pantry.

 _Home_ is relative when you work in a place like SHIELD, but _safe_ is a known quantity, desired. Phil watches Clint field strip his second favorite bow at the kitchen table, _Hoarders_ playing softly in the background, and Phil’s papers carefully moved to the sideboard, and he feels safe. And for the first time in a very long time, it feels like home.

 

***

 

Richard catches him after the service, “We should talk,” He says, voice low as he shakes Phil’s hand.

Talk is the one thing they hadn’t done, in the end. Phil had lied and let silence fill up the spaces. Richard had shouted, had asked Phil what he was doing wrong, and in the end he had just left. Packed his bags and loaded the car when Phil was at work so that that night he could say, “I’m leaving. I deserve better than this,” and leave without ever having to look back. And Phil had let him because he was honestly surprised it hadn’t happened sooner.

Phil says, “Okay,” and, “I don’t want to intrude.”

Richard tells him to come over tomorrow, the day after they bury his mother, for lunch, and to bring his young man with him, eying Clint where he stands, far enough away to seem polite, close enough to listen in.

Phil ignores the jibe, just says, “If you’re sure,” and takes Richard’s affirmation for what it’s worth.

 

***

 

"You've never really asked for special treatment, Phil," Maria says over lunch one day, "It’s not unprecedented for a unit member to live off-site, especially if he has his handler or authorized SHEILD agent present. You're both." She points at him with chopsticks, emphasizing her point.

Phil likes to pretend that no one knows about his relationship with Clint, because, really, it's none of their business. But Maria Hill has spent years alongside Nick Fury and has developed a distinct distaste for bullshit. _I’m classifying your relationship status_ , she’d told him when he’d rolled into work, gold ring newly placed on his left ring finger, _don’t fuck this up, but feel free to terrify the interns; that little one gives me the willies_.

"It’s important that they trust him, Maria," Phil says, picking at his salad and wishing that Clint gets over this health food fad soon enough, because Phil wants hot dogs and high sodium for lunch, not this, "We'll play it by ear."

Maria just looks at him and sighs, knowing too well that by now Phil's figured out all the logistics, all the ways that this could go down, and has made plans and contingency plans and figured out all of his last resorts. And she knows that Clint really is going to play it by ear and potentially get into a fist fight with Tony Stark about it, because despite it all Clint Barton values family above everything else, and he always protects what he loves.

And Phil knows she’s right, that all of his carefully laid plans mean little to the Avengers, but, at the end of his day, he loves his job and he loves Clint, and sometimes you just gotta have a little faith.

Or, at least, that’s what Clint keeps telling him.

 

***

 

Sitwell calls that night, after the service, “Tony Stark keeps changing all the pass codes and Natasha won’t stop sharpening her knives,” He tells Phil, “They’re not going to kill me, are they?”

Phil is not surprised in the least, the Avengers don’t take change or outsiders well, “If they do,” he says, “It’ll be mostly painless. They’re very efficient.”

“Fuck you,” Sitwell says, mostly in jest and partially in fear. Phil ignores him, watches Clint do some hand-stand push-ups in the corner of their room, his body tense from days inside and no outlet. He tried to scale a tree earlier, and hotel security spent an hour trying to hunt him down. He returned rosy cheeked and windswept with hands full of splinters.

“They’re probably just bored,” Phil tells him, “So either find them some HYDRA outposts to take down, or run them through all the field exercises in the book. Whatever you do, just don’t let Stark and Banner spend any time alone together in a lab.”

Sitwell curses softly under his breath, grumbles that he feels like a babysitter, and tells Phil that he has to go. Phil lets him go, knowing that he’s not the one who’s going to have to deal with that paperwork shit storm, knowing that Maria will be suitably displeased.

Phil watches Clint do a few more pushups, and when Clint rights himself, Phil pushes him into the sheets, figures that Clint’s not the only one under stimulated, figures that before this Clint was in Utah and Phil was in New York, figures he’s not the one who’s going to have to clean these sheets.

 

 

(When they check-out, Phil leaves a bigger tip than usual, a monetary apology to housekeepers who have enough to deal without adding two bored SHIELD agents into the mix.)

 

***

 

Phil is not really sure when exactly he falls in love again, but when he does it’s consumptive. It’s a slow burn, and Phil has a hard time sorting out the difference between _trust_ and _love_ until he realizes that they’re not that different after all. Until he realizes that he’s been swallowed by them both already.

It’s easier this time because Phil has done this before, navigated work and a relationship, because Phil knows who he is and what he can give and what he wants, but it’s harder this time too. Phil’s been here before. Watched his silence smother something he once thought would last forever, let the foundations crumble because he thought that something else was bigger, more important.

But Phil can’t really see anything but Clint, these days. He understands his job and the mission parameters and state secrecy, but all he can think is, _just as long as he comes home_. Phil Coulson has never been a man once could accuse of whimsy, he’s never been one for sentimentality, but he can’t help thinking some days that he would let the world burn for this.

 

 

(He wouldn’t. Not really. Clint trusts him. Trusts him in the field and trusts him with his scars and trusts him with his heart, and Clint would tell Phil, _you’re a good man, you’ll make the right call_ , and what is Phil supposed to do with all that trust? With all that faith? Clint trusts him to make the right call, and so Phil always does.)

 

***

 

Richard and Tom live in the suburbs. They have two shelties, Mork and Mindy, and a picket fence. Phil spends his days wrangling Tony Stark and a Norse God and a frozen American war hero with a level head and a steady hand. Here, he feels out of place.

“Suburbs always freaked me out as a kid.” Clint tells him in the car. They’re parked in the driveway, looking into a life that Phil could have had in some other universe. “No bearded ladies.”

“I wouldn’t hedge your bets yet,” Phil says as Richard opens the front door and waves them in. “Richard could be persuaded into drag when younger.”

Beside him, Clint laughs “Please tell me there are pictures. Please tell me that you have a secret drag persona. I have access to your files you know.”

Phil just smiles blandly and gets out of the car. It’s important to keep the mystery alive.

 

***

 

Richard used to say, "Why don’t we get a dog?" And Phil would tell him that they live in an apartment, that they’re both busy professionals, and Richard would just sigh and say, "I didn’t mean tomorrow, Phil. We're not going to stay in the city forever," and Phil wouldn’t say anything, because honestly Phil couldn’t see why they'd ever leave.

Besides, he’s allergic to dogs.

 

***

 

Richard restrains himself over lunch, makes no comment about Clint’s age. Not that it’s never really bothered Phil, not like how being Clint’s boss did in the beginning. Clint’s younger, yes, but he’s never been naïve. Besides, in their line of work it’s a miracle that they’re as old as they are.

Tom met Richard when he brought his daughter in for a check-up. They have a vacation home in the Finger Lakes, something Tom’s father left him in the will. Phil and Clint don’t say much about themselves, just that they met at work. Tom only has the vaguest sense of what they do.

Phil spends lunch checking exists and making escape plans. He knows Clint’s doing the same.

 

***

 

Clint moves into Stark Towers like every other Avenger and hangs around enough to help start a weekly poker night and startle Pepper Potts badly enough that she smacks him across the face with all the venom of a woman who has made her career wrangling Tony Stark. Phil is sort of sad he missed it and Clint spends a day not speaking to him, upset that Phil thinks the idea of Clint being slapped by a six-foot tall secretary in designer heels is sort of hilarious.

Clint spends his days hanging around SHIELD with Phil and his off-weekends at their apartment. Phil spends his free time hanging around Avenger HQ making sure that they’re playing nicely and no one has been forced to murder Clint yet, and breaking his no-sex-during-business-hours rule because he spends his nights doing paperwork and watching bad reality TV and that can only dampen the libido so much when the object of desire is fifteen minutes away and not time-zones and oceans.

Clint develops an unlikely friendship with Bruce—regular guys that attract freaky, stupid shit thanks to their natural proclivities and inability to stop themselves when something seems like a good idea—and Steve and Tony develop an unlikely romance and no one really pays Phil and Clint any time of day which suits them just fine.

 

***

 

“She always worried about you,” Richard tells him over lunch, Tom and Clint banished to the den to make awkward conversation, “Especially when all that stuff was happening in New York. She thought she saw you on the news once.”

She probably did. That footage had subsequently been destroyed, “You know I can’t talk about work,” Phil says him instead.

Richard sighs, “And that was always the problem. What about him? Can you talk to him?”

“We have similar security clearances.” Phil says instead of _yes_ instead of _I can talk to him about the army, about that time my best friend lay on a grenade for me_ because that seems petty. Richard was not made for loss and hardship.

Richard seems to understand anyways, “I used to be very mad at you. For a very long time. But I think, even if things had of been different, we still wouldn’t have made it.”

Phil’s not sure about that. Not sure that he would ever chose differently, given a redo. Phil is not given to having regrets.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Phil says, because he really doesn’t regret choosing SHIELD over love, not when he loves his job. Not when it’s lead him to Clint.

Richard sighs, “Don’t be. I’m over it.”

 

***

 

When Phil Coulson is thirty-two, he is alone.

Richard was understanding about the army, understood Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, told Phil that he was worth it. He is less understanding, however, when he’s not the secret Phil’s keeping anymore.

Phil comes home later now and lies about his day in the office. Richard is only human. He can only live on lies for so long. Phil’s not even surprised when Richard leaves him, and he’s too resigned to the decisions he’s made to be that sad about it.

Phil Coulson is a man who’s made his choices. He has nothing left to do but live by them.

 

***

 

They don’t stay for long after that. Phil realizes that they have nothing in common any more. That any life Richard’s made has nothing to do with the life Phil has.

They loved each other twenty years ago and they each found someone else. Phil figures that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

 

***

 

“You don’t want all this, do you?” Clint asks on the way back to the hotel, oddly serious, “The dogs and the picket fence and the wedding in Massachusetts.”

“You know gay marriage is legal in New York, right?” Phil says, because it’s a silly question. Phil has Clint, and that’s all he really needs.

Clint punches him in the leg, “Don’t be a smart ass when I’m trying to be serious over here.”

“If I had wanted all that,” Phil tells him, eyes on the on road, “I wouldn’t have joined SHIELD to begin with.” Because it’s true. He thought Richard and him were forever, but he never thought that he would end up in the suburbs with a dog or children or a mortgage.

“So you don’t want to adopt some babies from China?” Phil doesn’t look at him, but he can hear the smile in Clint’s voice.

Phil rolls his eyes, “I spend my days running after Tony Stark and a Norse god. I’m good, thanks.”

“We could get cats, if you’d prefer,” Clint tells him, “Minnelli and Gabor. I know _Green Acres_ is your favorite.”

“I’m revoking your TV privileges,” Phil says seriously. As much as Phil has a weakness for _Super Nanny_ and _Hoarders_ and _How Clean is Your House?_ he knows that Clint, for as much as he re-watches _The Godfather_ and _Die Hard_ , loves the classics—Errol Flynn and Rita Hayworth and Jimmy Stewart.

“Oh no, Agent Coulson, sir.” Clint mock protests in the passenger seat, “Not my stories. What about Luke and Laura? Think about the children, sir.”

Phil can’t keep the laugh out of his voice, “You’re a menace, Barton.” He tells him and thinks that he wouldn’t change a thing, so long as he can have this.

 

***

 

Phil grew up in Rhode Island and had a mother and a father and a sister who loved him. Phil was quiet and conventional and took his cousin to prom. Everyone thought he’d be an accountant or an engineer, but when graduation came he took his 98th percentile sat scores and joined the army.

His sister, Lydia, was older by two years and as quietly competent as him. She was a court stenographer until she found Henry, who found Phil and Richard to be against God, and Phil found he didn’t really have time for people like that, not when he had taken bullets for his country.

He sends her cards for Christmas and her birthday, and gift cards to his niece and nephew, who he’s only ever met twice, on appropriate gift giving occasions. Lydia sends him the occasional email and mails him family photos that Phil keeps in a lock box under his bed.

They were close when they were younger, but years and miles and jobs and spouses have come between them. Phil doesn’t really miss her, not when he knows she’s safe and happy. Now he has his makeshift family at SHIELD. For years, it’s been more than enough.

 

***

 

They catch the red eye in the morning. Phil falls asleep on Clint’s shoulder shortly after takeoff, never a morning person for all he’s spent his career getting up in the early morning. Clint keeps his hand on Phil’s knee, steady and safe, and flips through some gossip rag left behind in the seat pocket.

 

***

 

Maria Hill says, “I’m issuing the order for you to live on-site with the Avengers.”

“Make Sitwell do it,” Phil says, automatic, not wanting to be on the job even in his off hours.

“Phil,” Maria says, tone no-nonsense and exasperated, the same one she uses when he’s been on duty for forty-eight hours and seriously, that couch cannot be good for your back so can you just go home and get some goddamn sleep? “I’ve arranged for you to have the apartment directly below the Avengers’ ridiculously large pent-house and I’ve already put in for Barton’s change of residence, discretely of course. So just take this for the gift it is and please, God, taze Tony Stark if he starts to get fresh. He’s needed to be taken down a peg ever since he and Rogers started bumping uglies.”

When Phil tells her _thank you_ , he means it.

 

***

 

Life returns to normal in New York.

Thor clasps Clint and Phil in a bear hug, sad for their three day absence. Tony Stark comments that he didn’t know he could get time off for sleeping with the boss. Phil tells him that he’s a genius and it took him six months to figure out that Clint had moved out of his house and into Phil’s apartment. Stark claims that he’s a busy man, he doesn’t have time for the little things. Clint spends the day flicking paper footballs at his head. Natasha tells them that it’s taco night, also Bruce may have accidentally poisoned himself.

Phil forgets about Richard and forgets about Michigan. He’s thankful for Merilyn teaching him how to bake and how to cheat at poker, but that hasn’t been his life for a very long time now.

That  night Phil watches Clint breathing steadily in the evening light and he regrets nothing.

For all his sins, Phil has Clint. For all his sins, Phil is happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to prettyasadiagram for putting up with my ridiculous shit at 2 am and for the beta.


End file.
